Sacramental Economy

The sacramental economy is the manner in which Christ, during the age of the Church, makes present and communicates his saving work through the liturgy until he comes again. Economy here means God's ordered dispensation or stewardship of the mystery, not commerce. What Christ accomplished once for all in his death, Resurrection, and Ascension is sacramentally given to his members.^[2]

This economy is Trinitarian. The Father is the source and end of blessing; the incarnate Son acts in his body the Church; and the Holy Spirit prepares the assembly, recalls and manifests Christ, makes the saving mystery present, and brings ecclesial communion to fruit.

The sacraments are efficacious signs instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church. Through perceptible words, elements, and actions they signify and confer the grace proper to them. They do not add a second saving work beside the Cross; they apply and communicate the one Paschal mystery in the concrete lives of the faithful.

Because they are actions of Christ and the Church, sacramental celebrations are neither private inventions nor performances owned by a celebrant or congregation. Their essential signs belong to the Church's received deposit, and their lawful ordering belongs to competent ecclesiastical authority.

The liturgy presupposes faith, expresses it, and nourishes it. In the proclamation of Scripture, the sacramental signs, the Church's prayer, and the response of the faithful, Christ sanctifies his people and the Church offers worship to the Father through him. The Eucharist stands at the center, and the other sacraments are ordered to it.

The sacramental economy is not a mechanical system that dispenses grace apart from conversion and ecclesial life. It forms a people for holiness and mission. What is received in the sacred rites must be lived in faith, charity, obedience, penance, and witness; at the same time, its efficacy rests first on Christ's faithful action rather than human achievement.^[3]